Monday Morning Reflections

June 03, 2013

For those of you who were wondering where my Monday post was from last week, I'll sum it up in one word (and a link): Murph. I could barely lift my arms, never mind type after that...

This weekend is a much more normal one, so we can proceed with a bullet point recap of the weekend that was in my life and in my New Life life:

Friday evening Rita and I made some dinner and then packed the kids into the car to take a short trip to the beach. One of the advantages of living so close to the beach is that you can go for a couple hours and not feel like you wasted a trip.

The other advantage is that when you're as white as me, you can go to the beach in the evening and not have to put sunscreen on every 15 minutes.

The beach in the evening, when no one else is around, makes me feel like you can almost physically breathe stress out with the sound of the surf.

I spent Saturday morning where I spend most Saturday mornings - in the CrossFit gym relieving stress in another way, by pounding my body into submission. I break a sweat when we start stretching in the winter, but with the temperature pushing 90 for a few days straight, our gym felt like a sauna. I finished the workout looking like this:

In the afternoon our CrossFit community traded our workout gear for different clothes and had a little party, which was a little strange because you never really see most of these people outside of the times that you're sweating and killing yourselves together and then you see them eating a burger and a hot dog.

I left right from there to to pack up our gear for the show our band was playing at the Upper Room coffeehouse in West Warwick.

Despite some sound glitches getting set up, we had a really good time playing there again. Good crowd of New Lifers showed up to cheer us on, which was pretty cool. I'm amazed at how tight the band has become in these last several years.

Highlight of the night for me was "Jesus Paid it All" because I thought we finally nailed that song like I know we can. Hopefully next time we play it on a Sunday morning we can get it like we did there on Saturday!

My voice was incredibly rough Sunday morning - bad enough that during practice I had to apologize a couple times for the notes that came out of my mouth :) But thankfully I was able to keep it together during the music and the message.

Felt really good about this week's message. Every once in a while I get into a groove in a passage where I really feel like I can unpack what's happening in the story and this week's passage (Luke 7:36-50) is one of those for me.

Got a little choked up towards the end of the message as I was reminded again that I couldn't do anything to deserve to be invited to the table with Jesus but that because of his great forgiveness I'm free to be in a living, breathing relationship with him. That's a pretty amazing truth that I hope I never get tired of hearing or telling.

Once again I challenged the church to really let go in their singing at the end, and you guys didn't disappoint! What a great feeling to push the microphone away and have us all sing "Amazing Grace" together with our voices lifted in thanks to God who could save a wretch like me.

Went out to lunch with friends after service on Sunday and not sure if I ate something bad or what, but let's just say I didn't end the weekend on quite the note I would have liked!

Next week I'll be speaking at Renaissance Church in Providence for my friend Scott who is on a three month sabbatical. I will very much miss my New Life family, but I'm incredibly excited to share with Scott's church!

May 20, 2013

Friday night I got to hang out with friends celebrating a birthday. Our friends' daughter turned 13, and while I never thought I'd find myself at another birthday party for a 13 year old child until mine turned that age, I'm amazed at the way our church community rallies around to celebrate with each other on these occasions.

Also, there was cake. Like the kind of cake that makes me want to find a corner and hide with a larger-than-normal slice of cake cake.

I spent too many hours in a car on Saturday driving up and back to a family wedding in Connecticut, but enjoyed (as always) getting to see my extended family. I know lots of people say it, but I really do have an incredible family that I love spending time with.

Weddings are an interesting study in human behavior. They can bring out the best, worst, and weirdest in people all at the same time.

On Sunday my aunts and uncles drove down from Connecticut to join us at New Life, which was quite an honor! I thought it was only a little ironic that the one Sunday they showed up we were talking about money.

So yeah, we talked about money yesterday and I think I managed to put it into a good context and perspective for us. If I had to simplify it down to one statement, I'd say that when we understand God's grace in our lives we give because we want to, not because we have to.

If I gave away every last dollar I ever made to God's work and his Kingdom, it still wouldn't be enough to honor the grace that he's showed me.

I was supposed to make an announcement yesterday that I decided to hold off on because after the message I just felt like it was going to come across the wrong way. It felt like the right move then, and feels like the right move in hindsight, but if you're reading this I'll let you in on the secret.

We're now offering the option for folks to give their contributions online. Yes, we're slowly moving into the 21st century! If you want to contribute online, you can go to the church website and click on the icon on the bottom that looks like a dollar sign (very subtle, I know). That will take you to the page where you can sign up for your giving either on a one-time or recurring basis. You can also just click this link to be taken directly to the form.

Spent Sunday afternoon substituting a large grill feast and a sermon prep meeting for my usual Sunday nap. I was excited to work with Jason and Jeff on the summer series which will be working through the book of 1 Peter.

Simultaneously spent Sunday afternoon watching Rita try to juggle her travel plans for her work trip to Pittsburgh. One plane delayed and then the later flight canceled meant she ended up driving up to Boston early this morning to get out in time to teach her class in Pittsburgh by 9:30.

To top off a day that was already full enough, we got into the car to go get Rita's laptop from work and I backed one car into the other car. Minor damage to the car, major damage to my ego!

May 13, 2013

In my ongoing efforts to be (a) more disciplined, and (b) more creative, I'm working on a new blogging schedule. For a long time I've been just going once a week, but starting this week I'm shooting for two. I think the Monday post will be probably a bullet point download of everything I can think of from the previous weekend, and then later in the week I'll try to write on something more substantive.

So, enough chitchat...let's get to the point.

Rita spent Friday and Saturday with my mom, my sister and my sister-in-law out on the Cape for what has become their annual "ladies weekend" away. I think she got some refreshing time away from the kids, and I did my best to keep up with everything she usually does. What did I realize? I wouldn't be a good single dad, and I still hate laundry.

Mother's Day weekend was tougher for me than I thought it would have been. Every card I wrote made me tear up thinking about my dad, even though they were for the moms in my life. I finally understood how difficult these days can be for those who DON'T have the one they love around any longer. It's yet another reminder that the more I age and experience different stages of life, the more God uses those moments to soften my heart as a pastor.

Yesterday was a great day at New Life on lots of accounts, but one of my favorites was listening to Jason bring the message. He's grown so much in both his content and his confidence as a speaker, and I thoroughly enjoyed his message on why we do groups at New Life.

Speaking of which - we do groups at New Life so that we can each have the opportunity to grow deeper in relationship to God and in community with each other. But maybe the best question Jason asked yesterday was, "Why don't you?" Food for thought when we come around to the fall and open up new groups again.

While we've gone away from doing much in the way of morning announcements on Sunday, we are trying to make sure that we keep everyone in the loop of what's happening. Our newest way to do that is through text message updates. If you're interested in getting those about once a week, text "nla" followed by your name to 59769 and you'll be signed up to receive those.

Block Party is coming soon (June 22)!!! We got our postcards to hand out and send out this past week, so be sure to pick some of those up to use for inviting your friends to the party this year.

We've got another 21st Century addition to what we're doing at New Life that we're going to unveil this Sunday. I won't tell you what it is, but it definitely has the potential to make your life easier.

Last but not least, I received a few positive comments about what I shared regarding Mother's Day at the end of service. I should point out that my thinking was shaped in part by this post on another blog. What follows is the text I wrote and read from yesterday:

Mother’s day probably captures the full spectrum of human
emotions:

Joy to sadness,Hope to despair,Laughter to anger,Peace to fear,Security to doubt,Trust to worry,And everything in between.

That’s the case because no one here has walked exactly the same road to this point.

Some of us today are celebrating because we’re with our
moms, or because our kids are sitting next to us, happy, healthy, and in right
relationship.Some of us today are grieving the loss of our own mothers,
either through death or a separation that’s not of our own making.

Maybe someone here just found out they’re pregnant for the
first time, and there’s a tremendous amount of hope springing up in your heart.Maybe others of us despair because we’ve prayed for God to
give us a child, and he still hasn’t answered.

Some of us are going to laugh with our moms later when we
remember the great times we’ve shared together.And others of us might silently seethe with anger that our
mom never quite lived up to the promise of that name.

Some of us are caring for children that are not our children
by birth, but are children by choice and by heart and find peace and
contentment.Others of us are afraid that those children we’ve birthed
are making choices that are leading them down a darker, more dangerous path.

Some of us have tremendous security in being a daughter, a
friend, a mentor and a child of God and don’t weep to not be a wife or mother.Others of us are doubting our own worth because we haven’t
filled the role that we thought we would have by now.

And in all of these emotions, all of these moments, we find
God present with us in unique ways.
And all of you ladies may, at different times, feel any one of these
emotions, or any number of them at the same time. But in all of them we, your church community, want to honor
you – mothers, grandmothers, foster mothers, adoptive mothers, spiritual
mothers, daughters, sisters – as gifts to us from God.

March 05, 2013

So it's March now. I know, I know, I am Captain Obvious. But since Easter happens in March this year, and then since the end of March is just a couple short months from our major summer Block Party, and then, and then, and then....

But instead of looking ahead, these blogs are always opportunities for me to look back. So I'm going to look back on the weekend that was and then figure out how to deal with the next few months once I'm finished here. I seem to remember Jesus having something to say about this, something like "do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself."

This weekened kicked off for me with the arrival of our new church sign on Friday morning. We've been in the process of working on this sign for a couple of years now - there's a lot of boring back story to it - so it was really great to finally see it go up on the posts. I know it sounds rather corny to celebrate a sign, but for years we've been a somewhat nondescript, invisible building, and our hope is that a new sign with service times and a website address will help us do a better job of reaching out to our community and inviting them in than we've done before.

Of course a sign outside the building does nothing to help the community if what's happening inside the building doesn't connect. And this week we talked about maybe one of the hardest areas for people to connect with God around: our minds. For lots of people their minds are a huge barrier to trusting in God. I get it because I have a ton of questions about God myself - I want to know how everything happened, when it happened, and if there's some way to logically prove that God exists. I want answers that make sense to my brain, and when I don't find them, it creates some tension inside of me.

But as I've followed Jesus for years of my life, I've learned that he is not uncomfortable with us engaging our brains in the pursuit of relationship with him. In fact, in the great command he tells us that we should engage our mind in loving God. We should learn to think deeply about him, learn to open up our understanding to the possibility of his truth being revealed to our lives. When we do that, we get into what Paul describes in Romans 12 as the transformation of our minds. It's not only a transformation of what we think about, but how we think about the world around us.

As our minds are being transformed and renewed, we learn to test and prove out God's good, perfect, and pleasing will for our lives. And no matter how skeptical you might be about following Jesus, the idea that it might be possible to understand God's purpose for your life should be enough to at least create a little tension in you around that possibility. I want us to continue to be the church where that mental tension is created - where you hear something on Sunday that bothers you enough on Monday that you would have to go to the Scriptures and read it for yourself. I want to be the church that doesn't ask you to blindly accept what I say on Sunday just because I've got a platform and a microphone. I want you to challenge your mind, make yourself think, have conversations with people you disagree with. And then I want you to commit to opening up your mind to God's thoughts and purpose for your life.

You see, I'm convinced that to be a true follower of Jesus you have to engage your mind in a thoughtful pursuit of relationship with him. Contrary to popular opinion, the church (at least our church) is not meant to be a place where you check your brain at the door. Bring it along with you. Let it do the work God made it to do, but just be sure that you open it up to hearing what he has to say. You might be surprised at what happens when you do.

February 26, 2013

Guess what? It didn't snow this weekend! And, if the weather report can be believed, it probably won't snow this weekend either. Amazing, huh?

Also my wife flew to Pittsburgh for work on Sunday evening and won't come back until Friday night, so I'm spending an awful lot of time with the kids, trying to keep the house clean, and generally running around like the proverbial headless chicken. If you happen to come across me rushing around town somewhere, please give me some extra grace, I probably need it (and to be honest, the kids probably do too).

This past weekend we picked up the second message in our Engage series, talking about the idea that in order to be the kind of church that changes perceptions in our community, it will be critical that we engage our whole heart in love for, and relationship with, Jesus. While we live in a region where we are surrounded by the elements and reminders of worship all around, the truth is that many of those have become forms filled with rituals where the hearts of people are no longer being engaged in genuine worship and life transformation.

I desperately want our church to be a refuge from that - a place that creates the environment where Jesus can engage the cold, stone hearts of men and women who need the kind of change Jesus can bring. We talked about the idea that in our natural state our hearts are resistant to the will and purpose of God in our lives. We have cold hearts that are unresponsive and unwilling to move towards God when he moves towards us. The prescription God offers is radical, but beautiful as well. He offers to exchange our cold, stone hearts for hearts that are willing, responsive, and captivated by relationship with him.

He offers to do this, as we saw in Hebrews chapter 10, through the once-and-for-all sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. He offers to take our cold, sinful, resistant hearts and give us in its place a heart that is capable of responding to God and pursuing relationship with him. None of us really wants cold-hearted religion. None of us wants a lot of rules and external motions to go through that never move our hearts. We were created for genuine, heartfelt relationship to God, and I think that whenever we gather together we should represent that as best as we can.

The only way to present the church differently to our community is if we who are part of the church tell our story that way. We can't hope to change perceptions if we persist in following Jesus in a cold, heartless, lifeless way. But when Jesus begins to change our hearts and it shows in the way we choose to follow him then that creates an irresistible kind of movement after him that pulls others along in its wake.

This Sunday we'll focus on loving God with our minds, which will be one of my favorite messages to deliver! I love when following Jesus makes me think, and I'm pretty sure he's pleased when we go to church and don't disengage our brains. Be there Sunday at 10:30 to participate in the conversation, I'm confident you won't regret it.

February 19, 2013

I'm not usually one to complain about winter and its effects. I tend to be of the opinion that since we live in New England it will get cold during the winter and it will snow. Those are facts. But it's now two weeks in a row that snow has affected our Sunday services. Last week's blizzard totally wiped out our service, and this week's snow storm definitely impacted our attendance. I guess it's part of the hazard of doing church in the northeast, but it definitely has me wishing for spring!

Part of the reason I was maybe more disappointed about it than normal was that we were beginning a new series of messages to talk about why we do church the way that we do - what's in our DNA as a church. As I said Sunday, I feel like this series has been brewing inside of me for many, many years. Having spent most of my life in and around New England churches, I definitely feel a strong sense of responsibility and commitment to leading our church into its fullest impact on our community.

I confess that there have been times I've been guilty of complaining about how difficult it can be to lead a church in this region of the world. Our culture tends to be at best skeptical and at worst hostile to Evangelical Christianity, and that certainly presents its fair share of challenges to churches and church leaders. But I've also landed on the conviction that God wants our church to be a part of the solution, an answer to the question of who is going to change those skeptical, hostile perceptions of the church in the least religious area of the United States.

The prescription for changing those perceptions of church as dry, lifeless, boring and irrelevant is a movement of men and women whose lives are so engaged with God that they are being transformed in their hearts, minds, and bodies to be devoted followers of Jesus. When Jesus is asked about the greatest command, his answer focuses on that kind of engagement with God that affects every aspect of our being. And when that kind of full-scale engagement is presented to people, it always seems that genuine seekers respond to Jesus' message far more than they did to the teachings of the other religious leaders.

When Jesus presents that ideal of the greatest commandment, however, it creates a certain kind of tension within every one of us. If what Jesus is saying is possible - that we could love God with our heart, mind, and strength - then none of us can claim to have finished our journey. No matter whether you've been following Jesus for many years, are just beginning to learn more about him, or even if you're coming back to church after a long hiatus - all of us have learning and growing to do. All of us have tension between what should be for our lives, and what is right now.

I'm convinced God works in that tension, and I'm convinced that in a skeptical, sometimes hostile world, there needs to be churches that allow that tension to linger, that don't rush to resolve the tensions right away. And while I can't speak for any other churches, I would like to speak for ours. We are a place where the tension between where you are and where God is leading you will always be respected; we will always give space for God to work on you even when we don't see it on the surface. As we continue to journey together following Jesus with our heart, mind and strength fully engaged, I'm convinced we will leave behind us an open invitation for others to join us on the journey.

February 12, 2013

How was your weekend? I hope it included 2-3 feet of snow, frigid temperatures, loss of power, loss of heat, and lots of waiting and wondering when the lights were going to come back on because if it didn't, you sure haven't lived yet.

We didn't have service at New Life on Sunday, mainly because we had no power, no heat, and about 2 feet of snow covering the parking lot. So since I can't really give a recap of the weekend that was, I get to do my favorite lazy writer's trick and dump out everything that's in my brain right now:

I really missed church on Sunday. I absolutely love the people who are part of New Life with me, and when we're not together there's a major absence in my life. Can't wait to see everyone again on Sunday!

Easter is only 6 weeks from Sunday. Six weeks! Are you kidding me? Didn't we just get done with Christmas?

Valentine's Day is possibly the most overrated, overstated, fake holidy of all. I'm not usually a conspiracy theory guy, but I wonder if at some point the greeting card companies, chocolate companies, and florists all got together, and asked how they could possibly squeeze some more money out of people in the dead retail zone between Christmas and Easter. I'm sorry if I ruined your romantic mood for Thursday night...

Pitchers and catchers report to Red Sox spring training today, and I can't imagine a season in which I've ever been less excited about the prospects for the year ahead. I'd be shocked if they finished above fourth place, to be quite honest.

A few weeks ago I decided I was going to read Les Miserables before I saw the film version. Well, let me tell you something about that book: it is WICKED long. Without power over the weekend I made a pretty good dent in it, getting about 400 pages in when I realized that at 400 pages, I still wasn't halfway through the book yet! On the other hand, I'm finding it an incredibly enjoyable read so far.

I'm also re-reading Andy Stanley's book Deep and Wide. If you're a pastor or church leader (volunteer or paid), you should buy this book and read it now. You won't agree with everything, but it will definitely make you think about what you're doing and why you're doing it. You won't regret it, I promise.

I guess that's all for now. Have a great start to your week, and watch out for the snow that's supposed to be coming on Thursday. Just what we all needed, right?

February 05, 2013

You know that feeling you get when one of your kids gets recognized by someone else for something that they do really well? Maybe it's when a coach tells you how talented they are on the field, or when a teacher takes you aside and tells you how well they're doing in a certain subject, or when another adult talks to you about how respectfully your kids behaved in a public setting. There's this swell of pride inside your own heart at hearing someone else brag about your own kids, and maybe a subtle reminder to you that you should celebrate those successes with them.

That's how I felt on Sunday.

We had a guest speaker join us for the weekend - a friend from Bible College who is traveling to Germany to begin planting churches there in a matter of a few months. I thought Brian's message on embracing God's passion for mission is going to be a perfect segue between our last series on prayer and our next series on the vision and direction of New Life. His reminder to me was that it's more important that I grow in my own love for God than that I grow in my love for the mission that God has entrusted me with. As a pastor it's easy to lose sight of that reality when I get busy with the work that I know God has asked me to do here in and through the church.

But I digress. The best part of the day for me was the conversations Brian and I had after the service about the people that he met here at New Life. He talked about the way that he felt genuinely welcomed by everyone that he spoke with. He talked about how impressive it was to see the sense of community that exists here as so many people spent time with each other following the service. He talked about how good the worship team sounded, and how great it was to see the amount of kids tramping down to Kid's Church in the morning. Several times throughout the day he came back around to say just how blessed he felt to have been a part of the church for the day.

And every time he said it, my heart swelled with pride over YOU! Do you know why? Because I didn't have to tell anyone to act any differently. I didn't have to tell you to make a guest feel welcome, you just did it. I didn't have to ask you to hang out a little longer after service to talk with him and each other, you just did it. I didn't have to pump up the band to play at a high level, they just did it. In other words, we just did what we do at New Life, and the joy, life, and community that we experience every single week made an impact on someone who doesn't meet with us every Sunday.

In true New Englander terms, I'm wicked proud of you! This week was a reminder to me that God is doing something special here at New Life, and I'm grateful to be a part of it. I hope you are as well! For the next few weeks we are going to talk specifically about how we want to do church, and why we think that's important. I hope you'll join us as we talk about being a church that engages the heart, mind, and strength in a genuine relationship with God. And if you've been considering asking a friend to show up with you, the next four Sundays would be a great time to do so, as we will be talking about what makes our church unique.

January 29, 2013

Yes, I did have to look those phrases up! While I won't apologize for the content of the message on Sunday, I do feel badly about the nearly 43 minute mark I hit on the podcast length for this week. I typically try to keep myself to 35 minutes or less, believing the old adage that the mind can only absorb what the seat can endure, but this week I probably pushed the envelope of what your seats can endure just a little bit. Thanks for sticking around long enough to let me finish, though. I appreciate your willingness to track with me through the whole message.

I say that because, in many ways, I felt like it was one of the more important messages for our church to hear that I've delivered in quite some time. As we closed out our 7:14 series on prayer and fasting we focused in on the last phrase of 2 Chronicles 7:14 which promises that if God's people would humble themselves, pray, seek his face, and turn from their wicked ways, then God would hear from heaven and heal our land.

We began the series by reminding ourselves that we live in a great mission field. New England is one of the least "religious" areas of the country by just about any measure you could use, and is a land desperately in need of God's healing to move towards us. Many times, however, we pray about that healing or revival in ways that tends to eliminate our responsibility as the people of God to act in cooperation with God in the healing process. I'm convinced, however, that God's people being awakened by him to their purpose in the world are actually part of the healing for our land that we pray for.

Isaiah 58 opens with a rebuke of Israel for the way that they have fasted and prayed. They have done so out of ritual and obligation, but without really engaging their hearts in the process. As a result, God is not really impressed with the way they have gone about their religious business. He essentially tells them that their prayer and fasting is useless, because when they pray and fast they do their best to endure it and when they have finished, they go back to living their life the way they had before.

But the kind of prayer and fasting God desires doesn't allow his people to remain unchanged. As we pray, God opens up our eyes to the things that concern him, and then he invites us to move with him to meet those concerns. He doesn't eliminate our responsibility to act, he just promises that he will act along with us and will put forth his healing power through us.

When Isaiah talks about God's people being those who rebuild ancient ruins and raise up age-old foundations, I couldn't help but think that his words are applicable to our church. We live in a world where the ancient paths of faith and spiritual vitality are lying in ruins, where the age-old foundations of passion and love for God are crumbling. We live in a community where brokenness and hopelessness dwell even in the midst of great prosperity and apparent health. And the church needs to be part of the answer to our prayers for God to bring healing to our land. We need to run to the mess rather than away from it.

Over the next few weeks, I will be sharing more about why our church approaches church a bit differently. As we do, I hope you will hear us circling back around to these same themes. We believe that God wants to awaken a new revival in our area - it will be a revival that is good for the whole community, not just the church. I believe that as that happens our community will start to see a different version of "the church" than what they're used to and find it incredibly attractive!

January 22, 2013

Even though I thorougly enjoy the opportunity I get most weeks to teach the Scriptures, I also enjoy the weeks that I have off. There's something about listening to someone else deliver the message that helps me to hear and see things that I wouldn't have if I had been the one preparing the message. It's also been great for me to watch Jason, who is a great friend and servant at the church, grow into a more and more effective communicator. He brings a different energy and perspective to the preaching, and I think our church is better for hearing voices other than mine (you probably agree!).

In all fairness, of all four of the messages in this 7:14 series we started a few weeks ago, I probably gave Jason the hardest of the messages to preach. I'm pretty sure most preachers don't get all excited for the "turn from your wicked ways" kinds of messages, no matter how often that caricature is portrayed out there. So I thought Jason had a fine line to walk between sharing the truth that apart from Christ's sacrifice we are sinful and wicked, and the message of grace that God still invites us to turn towards him based on what Jesus did for us in the cross.

I was struck again by just how often I tend to run from confessing my sin and wickedness from God, rather than running towards him. It came back to me again this morning as I was reflecting on the reading from our Prayer Journal for today (you have been using your prayer journal, right?) We were reading from Romans 2, where Paul writes what you and I know about ourselves: we are sinners ourselves, and yet we get very judgmental towards other sinners. When we do that we tend to run from our own sin, instead choosing to point to someone else's as somehow worse than ours, even if it's the same sin.

So I point out someone else's lust, or greed, or angry outbursts, and I ignore my own. I ignore it and pretend that God will too, and that sets me up for isolation in my relationship to God, which is never a good place to be. I run mostly because I don't want to be judged for my sin, but when I run I'm forgetting a key principle of my relationship with God. He has already judged my sin. All of it. The ones I committed 15 years ago, yesterday, and even the ones I will commit tomorrow. He judged them all through the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross for me. He judged the sins, and found me righteous because Jesus' righteousness is mine.

If that doesn't embolden you to confess your sins before God - to run to him instead of away from him when you've fallen down - then I don't know what will. When we grasp that, then we understand what Paul says in Romans 2:4 - God's kindness leads us again and again to the place of repentance, which is where we find forgiveness and grace again. I need to be led back there again today, and I'm guessing you might need it too. So don't run away. Run to him instead and let him judge your sin through the cross of Christ again so that you can keep living in his grace.